Quote:
Originally Posted by Sue B  I reared him on milky cocoa - |
No doubt this will be seen as another personal attack by some, but if you post information such as this on an open forum (where it may be discovered and referred to by anyone searching for insights on how to rear a fox cub), I feel it really needs to be accompanied by a balancing statement ... in fact, it's my duty to do so.
This information therefore is not a criticism of Sue B, or of anyone in a similar situation, who is/was truly trying to do their best for an 'orphaned' animal, but I'm afraid that it is really all too easy to do accidental and unforeseen harm, whilst acting out of kindness.
First of all, let's look at milk .... most folk will rightly assume that an infant mammal needs milk, but the most readily available milk (cow's milk) is NOT a suitable replacement for the vast majority of baby mammals ... the level of lactose is way too high to be digested properly, so may lead to diarrhea, enteritis, dehydration and in the worst case scenario, death.
There are a number of commercially available puppy milk replacers (sold in powdered form and available at vet's surgeries and pet shops), which are much better suited to a fox cub's needs, although goat's milk (now increasingly available at supermarkets) is also suitable with the addition of multivitamin drops.
However, the main issue here is in the giving of cocoa (the principle ingredient of chocolate also of course) ... this contains the alkaloid thiobromine, which causes serious poisoning in many mammals, including dogs and foxes (which are closely related members of the dog family).
Dogs/foxes are unable to metabolize the chemical properly (in the way that we can), so that it effectively continues to circulate within their systems, repeatedly poisoning them.
See
Theobromine poisoning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following short article illustrates that thiobromine is an effective poison for foxes also:
Theobromine intoxication in a red fox and a Europe... [J Wildl Dis. 2001] - PubMed result
If as Sue B states, the fox survived with her for 3 years, then possibly he didn't ingest sufficient to cause lasting harm to his liver, and I too sincerely hope that he made a success of living in the wild.